The marks we make

Chapter 2: Bring Us Together

Summary:

In which Keith plays quidditch for the first time, Lance isn't too happy to see him there, and the two of them have to play nice for Pidge's sake. Well, mostly, anyway.

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"Lance, put your damn shoes back on." Pidge says. They're standing next to him, one hand on their hip and the other holding up their phone as they look through it.

"But Piiiidge!" Lance whines from his seat on the small grass hill that slopes up toward the student union. He throws himself backwards, sprawling out on his back with his arms splayed out above his head. With one foot digging into the ground, he lifts his hips up and points the toes of his other foot. He gets his leg as high into the air as he can and bends it as close to Pidge's face as he can reach. Given the length of his legs and Pidge's short stature, it's not a bad attempt. "Pidge, look at it!"

Pidge makes a face and slaps his foot away without looking up from their phone. "Yes, I've seen your feet. We've all seen your feet. Now put your damn shoes on."

He throws both feet up, legs straight and toes pointed, and throws his arms down, slamming his fists on the ground by his hips. "No!"

"Don't be a child."

"My feet are a masterpiece right now! It would be a crime to cover them up! A down right crime."

And his feet are, in his opinion, a masterpiece. Though it has little to do with his feet and more to do with the soulmark paintings that decorate them. Rich browns that blend with his skin tone cover the bottoms of his feet and his toes, giving way to ropes and tangles of vines in several shades of green and yellow. They crawl up the tops of his feet to twine around his ankles, dotted with half bloomed flower buds of white and red and purple. On the outer bone of his right ankle is a single fully bloomed flower, petals unfurled and curling along his skin.

It had happened yesterday, around eight o'clock. He and Hunk had been having roomie movie night, which Pidge crashed, per usual, as their unofficial roommate. They live in the same dorm building, two floors up. It's the brand new honors dorm, and although Lance isn't an honors student, he got in as Hunk's roommate.

Lance had been sitting on one of their large beanbag chairs, popcorn bowl nestled in his lap, when he had felt the tell tale tingling of a phantom brush across his skin. He had wasted no time stripping off his socks and propping his feet up so he could watch his soulmate work.

He wasn't sure what emotions to be expecting, not after he had heard nothing but silence from his SM after the chaotic anxiousness of his fire sleeve. He had held his breath, waiting with tight anticipation as the beginnings of another's emotions trickled through him. They had surprisingly been... peaceful.

Peaceful and content and oddly... serene. Not that his soulmate has never been happy or at ease before, but it was such a quick turn around from the previous feelings he had gotten from them. He guessed whatever had them anxious had gone well.

Lance had found himself unable to contain his grin as he sat there, wiggling his toes and his feet as the warm contentment slid through him, wrapping him up in a cocoon of tranquility.

"Uuuuh, what's up, Lance?" Hunk had asked, eyeing him from his seat at his desk.

Lance had hummed, holding a foot in the air so Hunk could see the color spreading across his skin. "They're happy." He had said simply, and Hunk had given him a soft, knowing smile.

Even Pidge had leaned closer from their nest in the other beanbag to watch the design spread up his foot to wrap around his ankle. Lance had practically glowed with pride at the look of awe on his friends' faces. It wasn't often they got to witness his SM's work in action.